Abcam finds founder’s opposition to Danaher deal ‘surprising,’ saying he’s sowing ‘confusion for shareholders’

Ab­cam founder Jonathan Mil­ner said he’d vote against Dana­her’s pro­posed buy­out of the bio­phar­ma tools sup­pli­er on Thurs­day, and the UK com­pa­ny ap­peared dumb­found­ed by the tim­ing of his move.

Ab­cam “con­sid­ers it sur­pris­ing that Dr. Mil­ner has tak­en ac­tive steps to op­pose the deal with­out re­view­ing the full de­tails in the Scheme Cir­cu­lar,” the com­pa­ny said in its Thurs­day re­sponse, re­fer­ring to the doc­u­ments it will sub­mit “in the com­ing weeks” that out­line the back­ground of the $5.7 bil­lion trans­ac­tion, the bid­ding process in­volved and the ad­vice of its board and bankers.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.